Eero and Samuli discuss the amazing benefits of body awareness and body sensitivity in training and how you can achieve it through the art of reduction.

The Secret Upgrade Your Training Needs

Have you ever wondered how ancient practices like Qigong and modern training methods can be combined to create a powerful, transformative approach to strength training and body awareness?

In this post, we're going to explore the concept of body sensitivity and cover the following:

Whether you're far into your journey or just getting started, this post will give you the information you need to take your training to the next level.

Don’t Overlook This Aspect Of Your Training

In 2018, we got our first touch with ancient Qigong in Taiwan when we visited Jiang Yu Shan. He taught us standing meditation, specifically The Grand Circle, which was hugely powerful.

It made us think about our own methods and exercises, especially in Athlete 20XX Method, because for many the methodology of Athlete 20XX Method was not initially obvious in its effectiveness either.

Yet still, people who came to our methods were blown away that they worked. But they had to experience the training for themselves first.

This type of internal training is effective because it gives you results in more than just your superficial muscles. It makes you develop internal awareness which leads to a better form of results in almost anything you do.

There is a common factor behind our methods: we describe it as cultivating body awareness & sensitivity through the art of reduction.

Reduction means going to the most elemental parts of training. You find how to intensify simple things to make them work effectively.

"The art of reduction in training is about forgetting all the external tasks and going back to the body, starting from there. It's what you need to reduce. Take away the sports tasks, performance, and weights, and go to the elemental pieces."

In the Western world view, we only perceive training as effective when you can measure it with sets, reps, distance and resistance. If you don't have a lot of external resistance, it's seen as ineffective.

There is a difference between external and internal training, and that difference is your awareness and attention. The two forms of training are called the quantitative vs. qualitative training (recommended reading).

The benefits of internal training are proven, and the effectiveness of this type of training gets real when you become very sensitive to your body.

The Benefits of Focus & Paying Attention

Most training people do is task-oriented training, it’s about performing a task, like throwing a punch or swinging a bat. You don't think about which muscles are working or targeted; you're just focused on the athletic action or movement.

This is why some athletes can be very skillful when it comes to certain athletic tasks but lack internal body awareness.

This is external-focused training and it's important, but it’s very limited. Internal-focused training on the other hand is about forgetting all the external tasks and going back to the body.

Internal training is about sensing and feeling what the training is doing with your body.

Bringing awareness to your own body and its movements develops crazy benefits. There are a few important things to pay attention to when you start focusing on internal training though. 

The 2 Key Elements of Internal-Focused Training

1. Time Under Tension (TUT)

Time under tension is one of the most important intensifiers you can use to make your training effective. You can intensify almost any stimulus through time. Spending longer periods of time doing something is key.

Athlete 20XX Method puts the focus on conscious articulation and mindful movement. By slowing down and making every movement fully present, you increase the benefits of every exercise exponentially.

The repetitions don't really matter; it's about the time and tension. 

2. Building The Mind-Muscle Connection with Patience, Focus and Precision

Developing accuracy and precision helps you target precise areas in your body, and strengthens the mind-muscle connection.

You cannot let yourself become distracted. Meditation helps with this because it really makes you stay present. You really have to be present in the moment.

"Patience and presence are crucial in internal-focused training. You need to stay present and have patience because some of these things take a little bit more time to feel than just a couple of seconds."

By building the mind-muscle connection you develop a way to build your strength, balance, kinesthetic awareness, and your proprioception all at once.

All of these elements bring you towards the present moment which is key. Simply slowing down a row or a push-up and counting five seconds up, five seconds down, is a great start.

You'll notice immediately that it's not about how many reps or or how much weight you’re using. It's about the internal focus and the stimulus you're providing to your muscles.

There is an expression commonly used in the Navy Seals: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. By taking your time, you ensure that you don’t miss anything.

When you miss nothing you make much better progress, and you make it much faster.

And why does all of this matter? 

- Because with these 2 keys you will able to produce better results with less resistance and thus less wear and tear. You are making every workout count and you leave nothing to chance.

Employing The Art of Reduction

If you want to make the biggest gains, forget all the external tasks and go back to the body. We call this the Art of Reduction.

Take away the sports tasks and numbers, and go to the elemental pieces.

When applying the art of reduction to various exercises, you strip away weight and repetitions, and simplify it. But don’t think that this makes your training easy. In a sense, you are replacing weight and repetition with awareness, TUT and precision.

In standing meditation as done in The Grand Circle, you're not utilizing or carrying any weight, but it still produces great results and makes you shake, tremble, and sweat.

These elemental aspects of each exercise are the goal, and they make light movements work incredibly well. It adds incredible effectiveness to the execution of any exercise even with heavier weights or resistance. 

"Internal-focused training is about forgetting all the external tasks and going back to the body, starting from there. It's about reducing everything to the elemental pieces and sensing much better what the training is doing and causing to your body."

People often miss the fact that if you really isolate a muscle, it doesn't take much resistance. Just the weight of your own arm, for example, can work as resistance if there is enough time and precision.

Try 25 minutes of standing meditation with your arms at shoulder height if you don’t believe us.

The art of reduction can be applied to every aspect of your life. We spoke about improving your diet by removing the wrong things in this post.

Rather than looking at your diet and trying to figure out what needs to be added, spend some time getting rid of the things that may cause disruption. 

By taking a reductive approach, you’re left with only what works, and you can improve on it easily because you’re left with the highest quality, most necessary components.

Combining Reduction With Internal And External Training

When you combine internal and external training methods, your understanding of the body will no longer be out of balance. The yin and yang aspects are brought together and you will get massive results.

Enhanced body awareness and control is just one benefit. When you can produce results without any complexity, then adding complexity, weight, or patterns naturally produce much better results.

Learning the internal body intelligence and sensitivity makes all the external stuff more effective and the kinesthetic intelligence will come easily and naturally.

You will be able to learn almost anything quickly. Learning how to pay attention is indirectly learning how to learn, and can be applied to everything.

Improved performance in task-oriented activities and sports is an obvious side benefit, because the improvement in intelligence is directly transferable to everything you do.

Why Smart Beats Bare Effort, Every Single Time

When you look at how almost everyone does training, they are in a competition with themselves and everyone else trying to lift the heaviest amount of weight or doing the most impressive skill. 

Yet, real strength training is actually not an athletic sport. In reality, you should only care about the internal effects and the stimulus you get from the exercise.

It's not a competition with anyone. You're focused on strengthening and taking care of the body. That's it.

Shifting from external goals to self-improvement is key. Forget all the external tasks, go back to the body, and start from there.

Take away the focus on sports tasks and external resistance, and focus on the elemental pieces. The joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles, as well as your breath and your awareness (mind) should be working together.

The purpose of strength training is taking care of the body and strengthening the body, not trying to compete with others.

You will, however, enhance your ability to compete indirectly because a strong body is automatically better equipped to win – it's just not the focus.

Let go of the ego and embrace the journey of self-discovery as part of the process – make this the goal and "competition". The more you reduce, the better you can sense what the training is causing to your body. 

"It's not about lifting heavy weights or trying to compete with others. It's about focusing on the internal effects and the stimulus you get from the exercise."

It's about developing a complete understanding of the body, both internally and externally.

Putting Art of Reduction into Practice

If you’re serious about putting reduction into practice, the best thing you can do is get access to our Athlete 20XX Method or The Grand Circle we created with Jiang Yu Shan.

Both of these courses go into incredible depth and detail, providing everything you need to know how to train like a superman or a true internal Qigong master.

If you’re not ready to level up yet, next time you train, take the time to incorporate these techniques into your own training and see the difference it makes:

By incorporating these techniques into your training, you'll develop a deeper understanding of your body and how it responds to various stimuli.

Remember, it's a process of continuous learning and growth, so be patient with yourself and enjoy the journey of self-discovery.

Let us know in the comments about the results you see!

Stay strong!